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whats the differnce between a dentist and a dental surgeon

tanyachicken

tanyachicken

Member
Joined
Jun 4, 2008
Messages
30
Location
Edmonton
I am getting all my top teeth extracted:(
A dentist was going to do it but then he moved with out notice??
Now I went to go see another dentist and he is sending me to an oral surgeon??
Whats the difference???
 
In Britain, a dentist trains for 4 years and then works in a dental surgery.

An Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon trained as a dentist for four years, and then trained as a doctor in a hospital for four years. S/he is therefore a dentist and a doctor who treats patients (usually) in a hospital.
 
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In Australia an oral surgeon is also generally the same as what Allydowd has described. As far as I am aware, here most multiple extractions and wisdom tooth extractions seem to be done by oral surgeons rather than general dentists because they are specialists in this field and have more specialised equipment in their rooms for managing these procedures. They do also consult and operate in hospitals for those choosing to have a general anaesthetic (this is quite common here for wisdom teeth) and for procedures such as jaw surgery.

I recently had three wisdom teeth extracted by an oral surgeon and he was very professional, did an excellent job and I had very little pain afterwards. I put some of this down to luck, but a lot of it down to the skill of the surgeon and the fact that this was a very routine procedure for him. I was also able to do this under IV sedation which I would not have been able to do with my own dentist.
 
Thanks for the help!
I just wish it would make me feel better about being 33 and losing my top teeth to dentures!!!:(
 
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